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Benjamin Banneker
Benjamin was a free African American almanac author, surveyor, naturalist, and farmer. Born in Baltimore County, Maryland, to a free African American woman and a former slave, Banneker had little formal education and was largely self-taught. -
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Absalom Jones
He was an African-American abolitionist and clergyman. After founding a black congregation in 1794, he was the first African American ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church of the United States, in 1804. -
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Richard Humphreys
Legend has it that his experience as a slave trader and subsequent conversion to the Society of Friends persuaded philanthropist Richard Humphreys to commit part of his personal fortune to the education of black children in Philadelphia. Witnessing several violent race riots throughout the city in the last years of his life also may have convinced Humphreys that education was the key to African-American progress in the City of Brotherly Love. -
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Richard Allen
Richard Allen was born in Philadelphia. He was a Black religious leader, founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Allen was born a slave in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. -
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James Forten
Forten was an African-American abolitionist and wealthy businessman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born free in the city, he became a sail maker after the American Revolutionary War. -
Mother Bethel church
The origins of Mother Bethel date back to 1787 when Rev. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones encouraged black worshipers to form their own congregations after being forced to sit in the balconies during services at some of the city’s traditional white churches.The church memorializes Rev. Richard Allen, its founding pastor and first bishop -
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William Still
William Still was born on 1821. He was a Black abolitionist, conductor on the Underground Railroad, writer, historian and activist. -
Forten House
The multi-racial American Antislavery Society was first convened here at the Forten's house in 1833. -
Institute for colored Youth
The establishment of the Institute for Colored Youth was intimately connected to African-American struggles for social freedom and economic opportunity in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Nor can the Institute's founding be separated from the expanding network of Quaker benevolence that included several charitable schools for poor children and children of color. -
Church of Crucifixion
The Church of the Crucifixion was founded in 1847 at 8th and Bainbridge in an area known for its racial discord. The new church drew some of the poorest blacks in the area. For more than half a century St. Thomas had been the only black Episcopal congregation, but the new church grew rapidly and drew a large crowd each Sunday. -
The Benjamin Banenker Institute
The Banneker Literary Institute, named after black mathematician Benjamin Banneker, was one of several literary and debating societies in nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Organized in 1854 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by a group of prominent men, the Banneker Institute promoted literary and other intellectual endeavors. Members were expected to deliver lectures and participate in debates on a variety of subjects, including politics, literature, philosophy, and astronomy. -
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W.E.B Du Bois
W.E.B Du Bois was an champion of civil rights and leader for world peace and freedom on the national and world stages, W.E.B. Du Bois began his life’s work in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. -
The William Still House
William Still's The Underground Railroad. Published in 1872, The Underground Railroad remains the single most important collection of stories of the men and women who escaped from slavery in the decades preceding the outbreak of the Civil War, and it was compiled by a man who had served as one of that clandestine organization’s most important conductors -
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Marian Andereson
Ms. Anderson is an acclaimed singer whose performance at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 helped set the stage for the civil rights era. -
Starr Garden
Since 1908, Starr Garden Park has been an important neighborhood asset. Taking up the entire 600 block of Lombard Street in Society Hill, the 2.2-acre park is the oldest multi-generational playground in Philadelphia. By 1895, the public recreational space known as Starr Garden came to occupy this entire plot. -
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Billie Holiday
Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. -
Billie Holiday Marker
This marker is to represent Billie´s hardship and accomplishments. When Holiday was a child, her mother struggled to earn a living by working as a domestic servant. As a teenager, Holiday was arrested and served jail time for prostitution and early in her life she was influenced by Louis Armstrong and by Bessie Smith (the Queen of the Blues). From her idols, Holiday learned how to interpret a song and the phrasing of the words to transmit strong emotions and touch people's hearts. -
WEB DuBois House
This house is a dedication of WEB Dubois and his mapping of Philadelphia´s 7th ward.Since DuBois's original notes and survey data have been lost, the Mapping DuBois project is re-mapping the 7th Ward circa 1900 using historical census data and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping technology to tell the lost stories of 7th Warders. -
St. Peter Claver Church
What was once the St. Peter Claver Church until its 1985 closing had continued to serve the city’s Black Catholic community as the St. Peter Claver Center for Evangelizezation since 1986. When the old St. Peter Claver Church, 12th and Lombard streets, was closed in 1985 it left many families without a South Philadelphia area parish after worshiping there for about 100 years. There were some families that worshiped there for more than five generations. -
Marian Anderson House
The house was declared an historic property in 2004, roughly eleven years after the death of the owner of the house, who also happened to be America's greatest contralto singer of the 20th century. The Marian Anderson Residence Museum has been placed on the National Register Of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior.
